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Kraut news, and a ‘fond’ farewell to 2018

CK News: Kraut will be coming out of the crock towards the end of the month, or early February. I’m not expecting a miracle with the condition the cabbage was in, but who knows. We’ve had great cabbage and bad kraut. We’ve had bad cabbage and great kraut. I’d settle for excellent kraut, but we’ll get what we get when we get it. Contact the Mother ship in Cherry Tree with your ‘orders’. We’ll see if we can fill them. Once again packed in quart ziplock style bags. Hopefully we get lucky.

Good Lord, I’m glad that one is in the rear view.

Talk about a train wreck of a year.

Personally, 2018 sucked.

From physically and near financially disabling medical issues, to mentally being beaten about the head and shoulders with life’s ‘little things’…I’m glad it’s over.

I was due though. Too many consecutive decent ones. Time to rebuild.

Looking forward to a few good things in the future. And a neck and arms that don’t hurt. And lottery winnings. (I’m up $50 on the year….on the only ticket I’ve bought this year. WOOHOO!!!)

And maybe a puppy.

Second thought, nix the puppy. Too much work.

Equipment for the next event, well, working on it.

Pulleys swapped on the ‘new’ grinder. Works much better, actually chewing through the apples pretty quickly, although the apples still need to be smaller. Thinking through a pre-chopper cutter thingy (highly technical term) for the grinder. Thinking…not doing. Not yet. Not enough alcohol involved yet for doing.

Old grinder has been stripped and sandblasted. Not sure about how to do the bushings, simply because I haven’t given it much thought. Probably just drill out the steel sideplates and insert bushing/s into the holes. Make them removable/replaceable. Could even weld/bolt on real bearings and races. Again, choices to be made. If I can get the new one working perfect, the old one could get set back as a heirloom. I may even teach myself babbit bearing pouring. I’ve got everything I need. Not that hard. Just pour molten tin/lead mixture into bearing spaces. No biggie. Cavemen can do it.

Tractor powered hydraulic ram for the crushing. We can still use the ‘run around’ press, but we’re not getting all the juicy goodness we should be out of the apples. A hydraulic press for the apple grindin’s after the ‘other’ press is done with them…I’m working on that. Might be in place of the normal press, might just be an additional step. I know how I’m going to do it, just a matter of getting to it. Too many shiny objects at work right now